A tabloid colleague once explained that, when faced with a blank page for Sunday's paper, you just wrote the words "Andrew Flintoff" and went from there. In an earlier era it was "Ian Botham". In this one it has undoubtedly been "Kevin Pietersen". Even though KP was effectively sacked last Tuesday he can last a little bit longer at the top of the page but after that will it really be a case of "Joe Root"?

Writers and broadcasters will miss Pietersen as a source of extraordinary stories as well as extraordinary innings. So too will the majority of cricket fans. He has been England's most charismatic cricketer in this decade, unpredictable, unreliable but capable of playing innings beyond the scope of any of his contemporaries. He was a damn good reason to go to the cricket.

But it seems that the closer one gets to the England team the less he will be missed. Apparently no one spoke up for him in the post-Ashes navel gazing. However, team-mates can be notoriously unreliable witnesses. There is a very loose parallel here with Somerset's decision to dispense with Viv Richards all those years ago. Richards was probably far easier to play alongside than Pietersen but back then there were players who said that they were somehow stifled and reduced by Richards's presence in the dressing room. The implication was that they would be transformed as cricketers once Richards had gone. One year on they were just the same.

England's best batsman has been ostracised. Andy Flower was not at the meeting that sealed Pietersen's fate. At one point the suggestion was that there had been a "him or me" situation. We now have a "him and me" scenario. Two of England's most potent assets, Pietersen and Flower, have disappeared over the horizon, probably not hand in hand, and the hope for the new regime – idealism is always more prevalent at the start of a fresh era – is that England will somehow be stronger without them.

There has been talk of the "bravery" of the ECB in this decision but this may be misplaced. There will be short-term public outcry at Pietersen's departure, which has already reduced the honeymoon period of the new men in charge. It is not just Piers Morgan who is outraged. But it might have been a whole lot braver to keep Pietersen on board with all the hassle that he brings with him. England will now be a more comfortable vessel, easier to steer but one with less potential.

Pietersen has always been a match winner, albeit an exasperating one, and a trophy winner. Next month England head off to Bangladesh for the World T20, the only ICC tournament they have ever won (in the Caribbean in 2010 – man of the tournament: Pietersen) and the world's analysts are gratefully thrashing around for footage of Moeen Ali while Pietersen is probably dry-cleaning his television suits.

Pietersen has been reckoned to be "a selfish" batsmen, an accusation that does not bear much scrutiny. "Self-obsessed" perhaps but he would not be the first England cricketer in that category. Most of them are; often that helps. He did look distant and remote in the field at Sydney, patrolling the third man or long-leg boundary, oblivious to all the decision makers around the bat. But that is where Sachin Tendulkar and Geoffrey Boycott spent most of their careers.

When dealing with a sportsman like Pietersen, who has baggage as well as brilliance, those in charge have to undertake the pragmatic and ruthless assessment of the pros and cons. On one side of the scales are the sacrifices required when high-maintenance careers are in the team (it is hard to establish exactly what problems he poses but, though no one is going to tell us anything, they obviously exist). On the other is his ability with a bat in his hand. Are those sacrifices worthwhile? That is the equation.

Eighteen months ago there was an awful lot of weight on the batting side of the scale. On the evidence of this winter's tour there has since been a significant weight loss. In Australia Pietersen cut a confused figure at the crease, in part due to the excellence of the Australian attack. He was unsure whether to graft like a mortal or to blast as he had done earlier in his career. Perhaps the magic was fading. The equation was becoming trickier to resolve.

Even so, he was England's leading run scorer in the series that makes the decision to cut him off all the more remarkable. Those in charge are surely not so naive as to crave a scapegoat. So the mind boggles at how Pietersen's behaviour in Australia somehow undermined the team, thereby piling the weight on to the negative side of the scales.

The guff in the ECB statement about Pietersen's age and his knees does not help. Australia's Chris Rogers and Brad Haddin are three years older than Pietersen, who is 33; and Ryan Harris's knees are nowhere near as fit for purpose. Nor does it begin to disguise an unprecedented decision. Great players have often been dropped before but never retired by the ruling body. There is an echo of Graham Gooch and Micky Stewart declining to pick David Gower in the early nineties not because they thought he could not play any more but because they did not want to have him around, a parallel which might cheer up Pietersen rather more than Gower. Pietersen has also been exiled because he does not fit in with the latest pursuit of cricketing utopia.

Your correspondent is reminded of guidance received from his predecessor when invited to captain Oxford University many years ago. "Pick your mate. You'll have a much better time". It was sound advice, allowing the possibility of sky-high morale in the team, but it should probably not apply here as there was a rider: "You're going to lose most of your games anyway."

It is supposed to be different with the England, teamwhose leaders have just overseen an extraordinary exit of an extraordinary player – unless the ECB's new director of cricket, whoever he may be, comes up with a radical cunning plan by insisting on a strange proviso before taking the job: that in pursuit of the best team there is the freedom to select the best players. That is, currently, Pietersen.